I'll start by saying that I was not going to buy this game - it seemed like
much too thin a concept to grab my attention. But a friend at work had
been jabbering about it for weeks, and somehow I found myself rushing to
the EB near work to grab a copy the day it was released. And despite my
initial skepticism, I haven't stopped playing the thing yet.

Remember an old EA game called "Mail Order Monsters?" It was sort-of a
monster construction kit with "Archon" style combat. I always wanted to love 
that game, but something was missing. "Monster Rancher" is a different game, 
but keeps a lot of what was wonderful about that old classic, tossing in more
interesting gameplay and tons of replay value.

So, a breakdown -

Graphics - 7

The graphics are perfectly fine, but unremarkable. I like the 3D modeling
on the monsters themselves, and I think that in general they're quite well
animated, the monsters definitely have a smoother, classier look than your 
average PSX characters, but the reason for this is that the rest of the 
environments are really quite lacklustre - the arenas all look more or less the 
same, and much of the rest is 2D. None of the graphics are bad, imho, it's 
just that aside from the monsters there isn't too much to look at.

Sound - 7

Sound is also fine but not too special. Interface and battle music seems
like it's probably red-book audio (skipped a bit because my cd was dusty), 
battle sound effects and monster voices are well varied and entertaining, 
but not exactly inspiring.

Gameplay - 9

Ok, this is what it's all about, and this is where this sucker shines. It's
really an incredibly simple game. On the surface it's not much different than 
Little Computer People or one of those Tamagochis, but once you start playing 
it's hard to stop. Through training, work, battles, and exploration you slowly 
build your monster's stats (fairly standard RPG type categories - Life, power, 
intelligence, skill, defense, speed) and help them gain new abilities and attacks.
What's great about the game is that it takes a lot of effort and many different 
monsters to progress - it's quite unlikely that your first monster will be able to 
reach the final battle, which is good, because the real fun comes in 
cross-breeding your champions and trying to find that one "perfect" monster. 
The game gives you ample opportunity to try different monster-raising techniques, 
different monster types (225 different ones), and experiment with items and 
abilities. As you progress you'll discover new items, monsters, techniques - it just 
keeps getting more interesting.

Battles are, imho, more fun to watch than to fight, but the game gives you
a choice of controlling your monster or letting it fight on its own. I find the
controls awkward for the human-controlled monster, and find it more interesting 
to watch the monsters fight on their own and cheer them on. If you're looking for 
a good fighting game, don't buy this - battles are fun to watch, and they're ok to 
fight too, but you're not getting Tekken or even Primal Rage-quality fighting game 
control here, after all this is really much morre of a sim/rpg type of game.

Monster creation is very cool - you get a different monster from any CD you
own (audio, cd-rom, psx game, whatever), so there's a great deal of opportunity 
to make different monsters from anyone else - you really get the feeling like you've 
got a unique little critter to do your bidding.

Haven't tried the multiplayer modes yet, but it looks kinda uninspiring to me from 
a glance. You can fight your monsters against a friend's, but there doesn't seem 
to be any tournament modes or stat keeping for these battles. It's still a cool
feature tho, and I'm looking forward to challenging my coworkers one of these 
days.

Replay value - 10

I'm sure I'll get sick of this someday, but I'm also sure that it's a game I'll keep 
coming back to. I've put aside FF7, Castlevania to play this, and I don't miss them 
even tho they're two of my favorites.

Because of the huge number of monsters available, the difficulty of the higher 
level tournaments, and the fun of cross-breeding there's an awful lot to keep 
coming back to in this game. I've already logged way more time into it than I 
ever thought I would, and I'm nowhere close to winning.

Overall - 9

This is a game that won't appeal to everyone - it doesn't have fast action or 
complex plotlines, it's a bad fighting game and a mediocre RPG. BUT it's fantastic 
for what it is, and it's the sort of game that makes you realize just how stale most 
other games have gotten. If you thought Tamagochis sounded nifty but boring, 
you'll love this, if you thought the Chocobo breeding was a cool idea but poorly 
implemented you'll love this, if you've wondered why Japan is gaga over "Pocket
Monster" this will answer your questions.

All that's missing is killer multiplayer support - this would make an amazing PC game.

What can I say - this is a game I wish I had designed, sure there's places it could 
be better but all in all it's a great game, and one I'll be playing for quite a while to 
come.

--Charley Bandes
glyph@papy.com

(Just my opinions, not my employer's, yadda yadda yadda...)